The city of Assisi once again gazes upon the world from the silence of stone and the power of words, though this time with a visible absence. Forty years after that landmark event convened by Saint John Paul II in 1986, Assisi is hosting the International Meeting for Peace under the theme “Disarmed and Disarming Peace .” Pope Leo XIV, still convalescing in the Vatican after the thoracic surgery he underwent in mid-October, has been unable to physically walk beside the tomb of the Poverello as he wished. However, his voice has indeed crossed the walls of the basilica in a profoundly human video message that stirs the global conscience in the face of the normalization of weapons.

The Pope wanted to be close to the patriarchs, religious leaders, and Franciscan families gathered for the meeting, reminding them of a truth as uncomfortable as it is urgent: the expectations of a world at peace after the end of the Cold War have vanished. In his analysis, globalization has failed to weave an automatic network of fraternity; on the contrary, it has fueled fundamentalist, identity-based, and nationalist reactions that today are driving a worrying resurgence of bloc politics and rearmament. “The accumulation of weapons is, for many, a paradoxical way of keeping potential adversaries out of war,” the Pope warned, quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a cycle of mistrust that only paves the way for new outbreaks.

Faced with this inertia that seems to betray the memory of the millions who fell in the last century, the papal message calls for a return to the common ideal of all peoples. And it does so unequivocally, stripping barbarity of any divine justification: “We must rebuild peace everywhere, not prepare for more wars! War can never be waged in the name of God!” In a clear reminder of his writing Magnifica Humanitas , the Bishop of Rome emphasizes that striking in the name of religion is an attack against religion itself, declaring that no armed conflict possesses divine grace: “Only peace is holy!”

In an international landscape marked by the arrogance of missiles and the weariness of dialogue, the Vatican champions prayer and daily fraternity not as a refuge for the naive, but as the “humble force” capable of transforming history. Living as brothers and sisters, the Pope reminds us, remains a possibility within reach of a humanity that persists in ignoring the Gospel. With his gaze fixed on the horizon of Assisi, the final appeal resonates as a civil and spiritual testament: to make peace the criterion that unmasks injustice and the only worthy destiny for the children of the earth.